3 easy fixes for itemization in D3

If I had the money to do so. I would by my way to the director of D3. And this is what id do.

1.) Crit damage nerf. Simply add a decimal point in the middle of all crit damage stats on gear. Crit damage is now balanced. Move along..

2.) Add increase specific skill damage mod from 1%-100%. Melee skills (Barbs/Monks) will show up on melee weapons. Caster skills will show up on caster items (wands/daggers). Class specifc items will have class specific skills. And random + damage % skills can show up on rings/amulets and uniques.

3.) Add cast speed to only work on casting skills.. Cast speed only appears on rings, amulets, wands, staves and daggers. OR WD/Wiz specific items. IAS no longer works for casting skills.

These changes would force people to gear up outside the mindset of stack crit. This would actually make items the new skills/passive tree. These changes would promote actual builds.

No longer can one set up easily work for all skills. And its exactly D3 needs.

Well i think the first proposed change will just move players from 1 affix to another one, I would still min-max my gear and the first option would make my existing gear worthless, or at least worth a lot less, as Blizzard has already stated they will not do. I think it will be better to buff the others stats instead, which I think is in the pipeline for the itemization patch. Which is part of the reason why it will take so long.

I think it was said in archon's stream that they want players to have more options to fix #1.

Well, I'd rather see a nerf of both critchance and crit damage (making an item roll only either CC or CD, not on the same item). We need more useful utility affixes instead of other dps increases... by that new affixes similar to pick up yard, thorns and so on that certain builds can benefit from.

Blizzard decided that a 2H Axe Wizard was acceptable for this game. I just don't know what to say to that one, talk about immersion killer. At least the guy with the archery skills wields a bow/crossbow, I guess?

Do hope itemization fixes this sort of stuff. %modifiers on skill damage are an option to do this without breaking the overall game, or releasing a Diablo4, complete with skill trees and everything else (which I'd personally love but, since apparently we're all monkeys and can't add up 2+2 and also aren't allowed to feel like we own a character, I guess won't get to experience again with Blizz).

Well, I'd rather see a nerf of both critchance and crit damage (making an item roll only either CC or CD, not on the same item). We need more useful utility affixes instead of other dps increases... by that new affixes similar to pick up yard, thorns and so on that certain builds can benefit from.

Well, crit chance would be nerfed by default if all crit damage mods simply added a decimal point in the middle.

Example being an item with 40% crit damage. Now becomes 4.0% crit damage. So if aplayer has like 300% crit damage they now will have 30% crit damage.

Also, increase damage to skills by 1%-100% would make actual builds.

Example if I was a WD who used bears I could stack as much Bears damage% as possible.

This would make 'builds' actually be builds. Because you would to actually think about what skills you could max out on items.

This would also remove the whole 1 gear set up works for all skills mentality on each class.

Blizzard decided that a 2H Axe Wizard was acceptable for this game. I just don't know what to say to that one, talk about immersion killer. At least the guy with the archery skills wields a bow/crossbow, I guess?

That's why I thought that caster weapons should have cast speed and + WD/Wizard skills damage mods on them.

That way melee weapons would only have IAS and melee skills mods (Barb/Monk) skills would be totally useless to casters.

To put it briefly, adding +% to skills to dropped items would make itemization a nightmare.

Imagine how many skills there are in the game. Then imagine how many different ways items can roll. Then imagine how hard it would be to find an item that has your desired stats (str, vit, IAS, crit%, AND specific barb-related +skill%). It would be virtually impossible to find items like this. Imagine getting shoulders with 300 str, 150 vit, 80 AR, +250 armor, and +10% bonus damage to energy twister (wizard). Just... no. There are what... over a hundred active skills. That means if you are going for a specific +%skill "build," and find a good item, you have less than a 1% chance of that item being relevant to your "build."

It would be more rare than rolling current trifectas.

Perhaps if the Mystic is added back into the game, you can use the mystic to imbue items with power and give it a random %chance of a specific skill. Say you select your item and choose "fists of thunder." The mystic would then imbue items with a random +%skill for fists of thunder. Items can be un-imbued for a certain penalty (gold? reagents? both?) to ensure that you can't just keep re-imbuing items till infinity before getting perfect rolls.

There's really no simple way to nerf critical hit damage without making some other stat immediately become the new flavor-of-the-month. Not to mention that if one stat is nerfed without monster difficulty being rebalanced, you'll have lots of people screaming that content that was beatable yesterday (and many many months before yesterday) is now no longer beatable. It's a step backwards to many people.

The only way (that I see) that you can have many unique stats which are all useable is that certain stats must be amazing in certain builds and situations while simultaneously *awful* in other builds and situations. For example, perhaps make 2H barbarians want crit damage (and penalize them for having attack speed) while dual wield barbarians want attacked speed (and penalize them for having crit damage). I totally concede that this idea has many other issues with it, but something has to be done to combat certain stats being appealing to every class. Otherwise, things like the "trifecta" are mandatory.

In terms of stats, I kinda think CMWW is really one of the more inventive builds. (Yes, it has balance issues but it's interesting to me at least). In this case, crit chance is as much about *survivability* as it is damage. And if you're doing CMWW on a budget, it's viable to sacrifice INT and crit damage in order to pick up more attack speed and crit hit chance. Not that every build should necessarily work like CMWW, but it's in keeping with the direction Blizzard wants to take itemization. (i.e. What's vital to me isn't vital or even good for everyone else.)

To put it briefly, adding +% to skills to dropped items would make itemization a nightmare.

Imagine how many skills there are in the game. Then imagine how many different ways items can roll. Then imagine how hard it would be to find an item that has your desired stats (str, vit, IAS, crit%, AND specific barb-related +skill%). It would be virtually impossible to find items like this.

Im sorry but its that kind of thinking that made D3 itemization bad in the 1st place.

Yes, imagine all those skills in the game having a chance to roll % damage mods. That would be amazing. Say hello to actually building and thinking. Instead of simply stacking crit on all gear possible you now have options to tweak out skills.

BTW, it would not be virtually impossible to find items like this if they exists. See D2 for the prime example of this.

There's really no simple way to nerf critical hit damage without making some other stat immediately become the new flavor-of-the-month.

Well, crit can be easily nerfed by dropping a decimal point in the middle. And really, blizzard can do this very easily. It says in their terms that they have the right to change anything, anytime. Just like they did to ias really.

Getting the highest DPS should come from %skill damage modifiers. Crit damage will count as a character wide increase on damage but at a smaller fraction of skill damage mods.

This would promote a nice balance and actual building. There is no longer any flavour of the month simply because you will define your build on your Increase skill damage mods. Crit would just be like the icing on the cake instead of the only taste in town.

1.) Crit damage nerf. Simply add a decimal point in the middle of all crit damage stats on gear. Crit damage is now balanced. Move along..

I don't think this will work. As Kamisei2400 said, doing this will just push players to stack another stat instead. If you were going to do something like this, you'd be better off placing a hard cap on crit chance, crit damage and attack speed, or putting a rule that only 3 pieces of gear could have those stats on and no more. Putting a decimal point in like that, similar to what they did for IAS before is a little too crude to be effective.

Personally, I like the idea ThatFPGAGuy suggested, and (no offense intended) I've seen around a few times before. Give each specialisation a reason to focus on one stat instead of others to share loot better. One distinction mentioned by Blizzard before was to help Monks and DHs value dex gear differently rather than both needing the same loot. I like this idea and think it could be taken further.

However, I believe Blizzard are going to do something similar to that but push it further by making secondary stats more desirable at the same time as reduce the main three. Who knows, maybe even bring in extra stats we've not even seen yet?

2.) Add increase specific skill damage mod from 1%-100%. Melee skills (Barbs/Monks) will show up on melee weapons. Caster skills will show up on caster items (wands/daggers). Class specifc items will have class specific skills. And random + damage % skills can show up on rings/amulets and uniques.

I'm not sure how long you've been following the development of D3, but suggestions like this came up for discussion quite often before beta, back before the rune system was finalised. There was a suggestion of runes dropping that were tied to a particular skill, different levels of rune for greater bonus and you would socket them in to the skills. The idea was dropped as to be flexible with the builds, you'd want to store up a massive number of these runes, just to try out different builds. The same problem would hit this idea.

To try different builds, you'd end up storing up masses of different items to try and get the best buff to the skills you wanted. Try doing that with a shared stash between 5 characters and you've got a serious storage problem.

In theory, I like the idea and think it would improve things, however, it would need to be very carefully thought out as currently it would result in a massive problem trying to get the exact +% to your favourite skill. I can already see CMWW and permazerk barb item prices going through the roof on the AH while everything else just stagnates and waits to be salvaged. It won't change much for a lot of people sadly, and certainly won't encourage variation as much as you might think.

3.) Add cast speed to only work on casting skills.. Cast speed only appears on rings, amulets, wands, staves and daggers. OR WD/Wiz specific items. IAS no longer works for casting skills.

This almost falls into the same category as the first point. Essentially splitting IAS into two different stats, one for WD/Wiz, another for the rest is an interesting idea, and I certainly see no problem trying to get those stupid 2h axes/swords away from casters. Silly move making those viable, I agree with Elvy that it's a massive immersion killer.

If there was going to be a change like this, one to help put a divide for casters, then I hope there's also a healthy buff for Staves as 2h casting is rarely viable.

Overall, I wouldn't say they're all 'easy fixes' as there would still be a ton of balancing and testing required, and I also don't think it would sort all the problems in one go. It would be a start, but the system needs a much more in depth and thought out solution to the itemisation problem to fix it once and for all so that it doesn't need to be revised again another 6 months later.

If you've not seen it yet, I'd do quick forum search for the essay on itemisation that was written up by one of the Mods here, I believe it was Zero(ps) that did it. A worthwhile read, and probably worth resurrecting for more discussion.

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"It takes a man with real heart...to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep." - Clive Barker

BTW, it would not be virtually impossible to find items like this if they exists. See D2 for the prime example of this.

Are you trying to say that single-skill bonuses in D2 were more prevalent than +all skills?

Becuase that's simply untrue. +all skills completely dominated the itemization and it was just as generic (if not moreso) than primary stats.

Im just saying it would not impossible to find or make happen.. Also, D2 pretty much ruined itself after the enigma/synergies patch. I mean D2 was actually better in its earlier states. D2 lost its charm after everyone started to teleport.

But... +skills where used. But also + certain skills. Even down to charms which also tied into the skill tree.

What im saying is. You could not just have a really well built fire sorc one second and and a cold sorc the next second. And while there is no skills in D3 we could at least have the 'items' be the ground work for the builds. And I mean actual builds.

I don't think this will work. As Kamisei2400 said, doing this will just push players to stack another stat instead. If you were going to do something like this, you'd be better off placing a hard cap on crit chance, crit damage and attack speed, or putting a rule that only 3 pieces of gear could have those stats on and no more. Putting a decimal point in like that, similar to what they did for IAS before is a little too crude to be effective.

Well, that's exactly the point for me.. To push people to stack what they need for the skills they use. They can no longer stack a single stat to achieve high DPS. I think capping it is kind of wrong. There should never be a cap since it restricts itemization. Just make it less effective and more balanced.

That's why a simple decimal point slide would make Crit a nice support mod instead

Wow, you apparently have no idea what's actually wrong with itemization in this game OP.

Please feel free to explain why. Personally I think I hit it right on the head. I mean dead on.

We need specific gear for specific skills. Not just crit all day every day.

Well, I didn't mean to sound like a dick, but here's why;

A; Cutting crit damage won't solve a thing. This will just push players toward another stat. The root problem is that we can get all the damage increasing skills that one item slot carries, on one piece. Instead, we need to introduce MORE damage increasing affixes. This will make by far more varied gear and it will also make more gear valuable. Blizzard has already acknowledged this by stating they plan on adding more affixes there there is room. (viable affixes at that).

B; Your second idea wraps into your first one. Adding more affixes is the answer, not nerfing current ones.

C; Same thing as my first point; Add more. More = diversity. I personally don't care whether attack speed gets split between casting speed and melee attacks, but I can see the merits on it.

Pretty much the reason for my initial post here was because the root problems of itemization, you don't address. Those roots being;

Completely weak legendaries, why would anyone farm for them? Re-do legendaries, and add actual game-changing unique affixes for each one, while simultaneously equalizing DPS for weapons. Deciding on a legendary should be about what unique affixes it has and how it will change your gameplay. The current state proves that the most important thing for a legendary for players is the viewable DPS

Players can achieve every DPS stat allowed on any given item slot, on one item. Add more affixes then there are slots.

Affix ranges for max level items vary too much, resulting in an overflow of 'bad' items. Decrease the gap between the ranges.

Current affixes such as thorns, health globe (to an extent) life after kill, and LoH are next-to-worthless for most players. Fixing these stats to compete with other current stats would help a lot. Such as thorns being a direct % weapon damage to attackers, ect.

The legendary pool is pretty small. Creating 'scaling' legendaries (to drop with their stats based on the monster that dropped it) will increase that pool dramatically, making hunting for legendaries all the more fun.

You see where I'm going with this. The problems are having actual GOOD legendary drops, and a bigger pool of them, creating new and making all affixes appeal to most players, and lessening the gap between good - godly items.

I don't think this will work. As Kamisei2400 said, doing this will just push players to stack another stat instead. If you were going to do something like this, you'd be better off placing a hard cap on crit chance, crit damage and attack speed, or putting a rule that only 3 pieces of gear could have those stats on and no more. Putting a decimal point in like that, similar to what they did for IAS before is a little too crude to be effective.

Well, that's exactly the point for me.. To push people to stack what they need for the skills they use. They can no longer stack a single stat to achieve high DPS. I think capping it is kind of wrong. There should never be a cap since it restricts itemization. Just make it less effective and more balanced.

That's why a simple decimal point slide would make Crit a nice support mod instead

You'd be heavily nerfing crit, and effectively gimping crit damage too. By doing this, it's not removing one stat from being the "one easy win', it's removing two stats from being wanted at all. Everyone will end up stacking IAS and main stat and ignoring everything else.

You said:
"They can no longer stack a single stat to achieve high DPS. "
At the moment, I believe people with top dps are stacking main stat, IAS, crit chance and crit damage, that's four stats to achieve high dps. Crit chance with low crit damage isn't great, and high crit damage with low crit chance is also kind of pointless. By reducing crit chance so drastically, you're removing two stats from the desired item pool, and making it even easier to gear to the (new) effective best dps model by only requiring main stat and IAS.

My intention for suggesting hard caps for crit chance, crit damage and IAS is so that people can aim for the caps and can then focus easier on other things. If the caps were sensible, then it opens up more viability for new builds - but I believe to be truly effective, you'll need new secondary stats to fill the gap and make more customisable builds diverse. What those mystery new stats could be is not something my tired brain can suggest right now

Players can achieve every DPS stat allowed on any given item slot, on one item. Add more affixes then there are slots.

This is something I thought Blizzard would try do when I read through the itemisation blog, and I think it would go nicely with a hard caps and increased primary damage stat options. That would be really good for diversity. The only +damage stats I can think of atm is +elemental damage% and then overhaul a lot of skills to give them an elemental affect, or allow items to change x skill to elemental damage y.

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"It takes a man with real heart...to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep." - Clive Barker

A; Cutting crit damage won't solve a thing. This will just push players toward another stat. The root problem is that we can get all the damage increasing skills that one item slot carries, on one piece. Instead, we need to introduce MORE damage increasing affixes. This will make by far more varied gear and it will also make more gear valuable. Blizzard has already acknowledged this by stating they plan on adding more affixes there there is room. (viable affixes at that).

There's another part to this problem. On slots like weapons, rings, amulets, gloves you basically have no room for "defensive" stats. So we need more item properties, but we also need a mechanism by which if you get life/sec on a pair of gloves it doesn't automatically become terrible because that's a BIG problem at the moment.